Worklog Wii U R&D Thread (WURD)

[Y2K]

I got burned out and took a month off Wii U stuff. But I'm back with big news!

Presenting... the LOLWUT trim!

View attachment 29864
View attachment 29866
WUT stands for Wii U Trim. And it's also only one letter off from "WUP" which is Nintendo's designator for Wii U motherboards.

Here it is compared to a stock WUP-50. The board area has been reduced by more than 70%.
View attachment 29867

the LOLWUT trim's dimensions are 81 x 111mm-- only slightly larger than the venerable OMGWTF!
View attachment 29865

Ok, let me back up a bit to document the stuff that led up to the final trim. In late August I decided to integrate the other voltage regulators the Wii U needs onto my SiC43X regulator board. Came out to 37x23mm in the end. I wanted 2oz/in² copper, but forgot that the trace/space specs are looser with heavier copper, so I had to get 1oz.
View attachment 29868View attachment 29869

• x2 SiC431C 24A buck regulators for 1v and 1.15v (CPU + GPU)
• x2 MUN3CAD01-SB 1A bucks for 1.1V and 1.25V (for DRH IC)
• x1 MUN3CAD03-SE 3A buck for 1.5V (RAM)
• x1 TPS63810YFFR 2.5A buck-boost for 3.3V
• x1 FAN48610BUC50X 5V 1A boost (USB)

Schematic, board, gerbers, iBOM JSON are available here and licensed under TAPR OHL: https://github.com/mackieks/bistro Schematic's a bit messy (haven't cleaned it up for a formal release) but whatever.

I assembled the Bistro reg board with my new Pixel Pump from Robins Tools! Highly recommend it, it's a fun little tool and way better than tweezers for chipscale parts.

View attachment 29870View attachment 29871

I put together a 1S4P 21700 setup to power everything. The mobo fired right up with the custom reg board! I did have to increase the 1.1V reg voltage to 1.15V to get the DRH IC stable so the Gamepad wouldn't disconnect sporadically.
View attachment 29872
View attachment 29873

Next up was relocating the Pico de_Fuse modchip. The testpads it was connected to originally were going to be trimmed off, so I had to rewire the debug port pins (8 wires) to the same patch of vias as the eMMC, NAND, and WiFi. Virtually all of the vias in this area get used. Nice of Nintendo to consolidate all the IO interfaces, but a flex would really help here.
View attachment 29874
I swapped the fullsize Pico out for a slimmed-down RP2040 Zero while I was doing this.
View attachment 29875
Last thing I did was tweak some of the SD card wiring (shorting WP and CD to GND closer to the SOC). At this point everything had been relocated within the trim boundaries I had originally envisioned.

I've been theorycrafting the LOLWUT trim for a while. Here's an early mockup from my WUP-01 compendium. By relocating the wireless modules, SMC/RTC and NANDs, the mobo can be cut down to the SOC, RAM, video encoder, and DRH IC. Theoretically you could cut off the video encoder and DRH and relocate them with trace scratching, but I'm not gonna go that far.

View attachment 29876
As you've all seen already, the WUP-50 equivalent is even more compact, thanks to the RAM being moved inward, along with the smaller SOC.

Pre-trim pic. Man, this post is kinda backwards, huh?
View attachment 29877

I trimmed, sanded, checked resistances, removed an MLCC I nicked, wired up the bistro reg board...
View attachment 29879View attachment 29882
View attachment 29878
It boots! While I haven't wired up HDMI or composite, the trimmed mobo of course still displays on the paired Gamepad.

Video of trim booting:

Video of trim playing Breath of the Wild, feat. jet engine 5V fan and World's Worst Loading Times:

And some final close-up glamour shots:
View attachment 29880
View attachment 29881

Regarding the trim guide, it's still a ways off. I need to scan a WUP-50 to make the diagrams for the guide-- all my trim development has been done with the WUP-01 compendium and pencil+paper. Regardless, my goal is to release The Definitive Wii U Trimming Guide before the end of the year!

Also, fun fact, WUT is also the name of the homebrew Wii U SDK, aka Wii U Toolchain

Incredibly great work man, I've been eagerly awaiting the completion of this trim! I'm astonished by the possibilities going forward, and can't wait to see what the community comes up with!

 

[ShockSlayer]

Nice work. I'm happy that you kept the naming convention and expanded upon it.

I'm sure the trim is cool too.

 

[RegDogg]

I got burned out and took a month off Wii U stuff. But I'm back with big news!

Presenting... the LOLWUT trim!

View attachment 29864
View attachment 29866
WUT stands for Wii U Trim. And it's also only one letter off from "WUP" which is Nintendo's designator for Wii U motherboards.

Here it is compared to a stock WUP-50. The board area has been reduced by more than 70%.
View attachment 29867

the LOLWUT trim's dimensions are 81 x 111mm-- only slightly larger than the venerable OMGWTF!
View attachment 29865

Ok, let me back up a bit to document the stuff that led up to the final trim. In late August I decided to integrate the other voltage regulators the Wii U needs onto my SiC43X regulator board. Came out to 37x23mm in the end. I wanted 2oz/in² copper, but forgot that the trace/space specs are looser with heavier copper, so I had to get 1oz.
View attachment 29868View attachment 29869

• x2 SiC431C 24A buck regulators for 1v and 1.15v (CPU + GPU)
• x2 MUN3CAD01-SB 1A bucks for 1.1V and 1.25V (for DRH IC)
• x1 MUN3CAD03-SE 3A buck for 1.5V (RAM)
• x1 TPS63810YFFR 2.5A buck-boost for 3.3V
• x1 FAN48610BUC50X 5V 1A boost (USB)

Schematic, board, gerbers, iBOM JSON are available here and licensed under TAPR OHL: https://github.com/mackieks/bistro Schematic's a bit messy (haven't cleaned it up for a formal release) but whatever.

I assembled the Bistro reg board with my new Pixel Pump from Robins Tools! Highly recommend it, it's a fun little tool and way better than tweezers for chipscale parts.

View attachment 29870View attachment 29871

I put together a 1S4P 21700 setup to power everything. The mobo fired right up with the custom reg board! I did have to increase the 1.1V reg voltage to 1.15V to get the DRH IC stable so the Gamepad wouldn't disconnect sporadically.
View attachment 29872
View attachment 29873

Next up was relocating the Pico de_Fuse modchip. The testpads it was connected to originally were going to be trimmed off, so I had to rewire the debug port pins (8 wires) to the same patch of vias as the eMMC, NAND, and WiFi. Virtually all of the vias in this area get used. Nice of Nintendo to consolidate all the IO interfaces, but a flex would really help here.
View attachment 29874
I swapped the fullsize Pico out for a slimmed-down RP2040 Zero while I was doing this.
View attachment 29875
Last thing I did was tweak some of the SD card wiring (shorting WP and CD to GND closer to the SOC). At this point everything had been relocated within the trim boundaries I had originally envisioned.

I've been theorycrafting the LOLWUT trim for a while. Here's an early mockup from my WUP-01 compendium. By relocating the wireless modules, SMC/RTC and NANDs, the mobo can be cut down to the SOC, RAM, video encoder, and DRH IC. Theoretically you could cut off the video encoder and DRH and relocate them with trace scratching, but I'm not gonna go that far.

View attachment 29876
As you've all seen already, the WUP-50 equivalent is even more compact, thanks to the RAM being moved inward, along with the smaller SOC.

Pre-trim pic. Man, this post is kinda backwards, huh?
View attachment 29877

I trimmed, sanded, checked resistances, removed an MLCC I nicked, wired up the bistro reg board...
View attachment 29879View attachment 29882
View attachment 29878
It boots! While I haven't wired up HDMI or composite, the trimmed mobo of course still displays on the paired Gamepad.

Video of trim booting:

Video of trim playing Breath of the Wild, feat. jet engine 5V fan and World's Worst Loading Times:

And some final close-up glamour shots:
View attachment 29880
View attachment 29881

Regarding the trim guide, it's still a ways off. I need to scan a WUP-50 to make the diagrams for the guide-- all my trim development has been done with the WUP-01 compendium and pencil+paper. Regardless, my goal is to release The Definitive Wii U Trimming Guide before the end of the year!

About to lose my shit, this is the coolest fucking discovery I've seen in my pas 2 years being apart of this community, you are another godsend the community thought wouldn't see for a while, good fucking work my guy!!!

 

[Stitches]

 

[ohkin86]

Well done. If you need it, I will provide you with a few wiiu pad back shells for free. Based on the size you cut, I think it can all be stored.

 

[YveltalGriffin]

Well done. If you need it, I will provide you with a few wiiu pad back shells for free. Based on the size you cut, I think it can all be stored.

Wonderful, you read my mind! I'll DM you.

 

[Nold]

 

[Shank]

 

[Stitches]

 

[RegDogg]

If you want, I have the original datasheet and documentation here for the original Gamepad screen, so it is definitely possible to make a custom LCD drive, which I've been working on. If you want, once it is done I can send you a free sample for the driver! https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/wii-u-gamepad-screen-true-model-number.5784

And feel free to DM me on Discord if you are interested, or have any questions!

 

[Viilmo]

 

[Crazzyleprechaun]

This is amazing I can’t believe you finally did it. Never thought I’d see the Wii U that small. Seriously great work!

 

[xck]

Very cool !!!

 

[RegDogg]

Thanks to me and some buds in the Discord server, another difference in revisions is the colors of the power, and sensor ports

The 01's all seem to have a yellow power, and red sensor port:

Then the 30 seems to be inconsistent AFAIK

Then the 40's and 50's are all black ports

Not sure if this makes a difference, just something I noticed

 

[Lazr]

Then the 30 seems to be inconsistent AFAIK

WUP-30 is very inconsistent. I have two with black ports and then one with yellow power/red sensor bar

 

[E-M-I]

WUP-30 is very inconsistent. I have two with black ports and then one with yellow power/red sensor bar

Ya my Wup 30 has all black ports when I checked

 

[YveltalGriffin]

Quick update: I am still hard at work on The Definitive Wii U Trimming Guide. There have been many details to work out over the past few months, such as:

• comprehensive audio/video pinouts
• mode pin behavior
• I2S frequencies and pin locations
• whether voltage rails can be consolidated/shorted reliably
• which battery setups are safe to use (important consideration for a 25W+ system!)
• the easiest/most bulletproof process for softmodding both the Wii U and vWii
• the best ways to load GC/Wii games, etc...

This logistics work is nowhere near as fun as trimming and rewiring crap on the fly, but it must be done for the guide to be usable. Otherwise the guide isn't really a guide, it's just an info dump of meaningless pinouts.

One small glimmer of "fun" recently was rewiring HDMI. This was the last "unproven" relocation and I'm glad it worked as expected.

I've completed the most difficult/tedious diagrams, and the guide is weighing in at 2800 words so far. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!

 

[portabalizeEverything]

How are you coming along on the guide? Im Very interested even to know how you are figuring this all out. i dont know what type of mobo my wiiu is either. The community is looking forward to This!!

 

[YveltalGriffin]

The Definitive Wii U Trimming Guide is live! Click here to navigate to the thread.

First and foremost, I have some people to thank:

• ShinyQuagsire23, for Pico de_Fuse and stroopwafel
• @Crazzyleprechaun, for pioneering the wireless module relocations and trim dev support
• @thedrew, for alerting the BB community at large to the WUP-50
• @Shank and @Nold, for their initial Wii U research and theorycrafting
• @Redherring32, for sending me a Japanese GamePad and proofreading the trim guide
• @CrashBash, @cheese, and Noah for providing BitBuilt
• @ShockSlayer, for inspiring me to start portablizing in earnest, and BB’s trim naming conventions

This wouldn't have been possible without all of your help! Thank you so much! Now some comments about the guide.

I mentioned this earlier in the thread, but I never actually sanded down a WUP-50. I just cross-referenced my WUP-01 compendium against a WUP-50 mobo. All of my WUP-50 pinoutting work was done with pencil and paper:

I'm proud of the guide-- especially the clean scans and diagrams! But the closer I got to finishing the guide, the more I realized just how fucking absurd the relocations and stuff are. To be perfectly frank, I've stopped caring about whether anyone ever replicates the trim. I finished the guide simply out of a sense of duty to document what I did. Unlike the Wii, the trim is the opposite of reasonable or accessible, which honestly really sucks...

With that being said, there are a few QoL improvements that would make things a little easier:

• A custom PCB for relocating the SMC and RTC, kind of like Gman's PIF board for the N64. This would clean up a lot of annoying magnet wires. Maybe the wireless modules could also connect to this PCB?
• A flex PCB for the NAND, eMMC, Pico de_Fuse, and Wi-Fi module. This has been discussed ad nauseam already.
• Determining which pins aren't needed for the wireless modules. There are a ton that connect to the BT/Wi-Fi/5GHz modules and eliminating them would be amazing. I just never did any iterative testing of disconnecting those pins one by one.
• Software patches for (in order of likelihood) Wi-Fi module, BT module, and GamePad module.

I'm so burned out from writing all the documentation for the trim that I don't know if I'll ever tackle these things. It'll be a miracle if I manage to release a GamePad addendum to the guide! Maybe someone else can carry the torch. But now it's time for me to move on and finish up some backlogged projects.

 

[Crazzyleprechaun]

I cannot wait to try this! I've been stumped with progress on my Wii U and I've been wanting to get back into it and this is just what I needed. Thank you for all your hard work!